Black Magic Beauty Editorial for Urban Coco Magazine

I'm often a photographer of extremes, I love pure porcelain white skin or jet black dark skin. I like graphic black and whites or super saturated rich colors. I like extreme high key, or extreme low key. I like velvety smooth, nearly textureless surfaces or extreme texture you can reach out and touch. Oh, and I like red. This editorial couldn't be more "me".

The concept of this shoot originally began with the idea of transformation... one thing becoming another. On a test shoot (which will be released later this year), the idea was that I had to express transformation in a single image. In this shoot we decided to paint the model black so that her skin would be liquid black in tone and texture. During that test shoot I fell in love with the results, and knew that there was a stunning editorial waiting to be created.

The concept of the shoot was tone and texture; everything would be low key black on black. The only highlights would be the texture of the skin and the shine of the jewelry we would adore her in.

As always, this shoot would be impossible without my creative team to help me express my vision. The shoot appeared this week in Urban Coco Magazine... and it is exactly what I envisioned!